


Second Chance

by TyrannosaurusRekt



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Human To Inkling, Pseudo-Isekai, Self-Discovery, Transformation, hhhh, tags to be added as story develops, trans undertones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21770500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TyrannosaurusRekt/pseuds/TyrannosaurusRekt
Summary: In most cases, one is alerted to a substantial change in their physiological state by a lack of sensation. Being unable to feel an arm, see out of an eye, or move a leg are usually the signs that those areas have undergone a shift in condition, integrity, or, rarely, physical location.The unexpected presence of sensation, when it occurs, means something much, but not entirely, different.
Relationships: Agent 3/Agent 8 (Splatoon), Agent 4 (Splatoon)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	1. Waiting for my New Life to Begin

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time really writing anything. please give feedback! i'm learning!

Man.  
I am stressed.

I’m halfway through my senior year of high school. My head hurts, My butt hurts, and I am currently operating on an entire hour of sleep. College applications are due in a week, and my essay is half done at the most. I have four finals the week after that, and I haven’t studied for any of them.  
Things aren’t going well.

“I’m home,” I announced as loudly as possible to my apartment as I trudged in the back door. It was drizzling outside, and I didn’t want to be any wetter than I already was. I shut it behind me, carried my backpack in, and flopped on the couch, just in time to see my big sister arrive through the front.  
“‘Sup, Chris!” Sheila said as she came through the door, lugging her own pack. She was 21 years old, and a bit taller than me, clocking in at about 6’1. We shared the same light brown hair, olive-ish skin, and dimples, but her eyes were bright blue rather than my soft hazel, and her hair was styled into a messy ponytail.  
“I actually just got here.” I said. “Work let you off early?”  
“Yep. Edward offered to cover my shift.” She discarded her jacket and slumped down on the couch across from me. “He’s cool. I should ask him for coffee at some point.”  
“Scheduling might be an issue, considering he has two shifts to cover,” I replied.  
“Oh, shut it. It’s not like you and Jacob have seen each other in the past three months.”  
“Hey, you know how much school shit I have to deal with,” I countered. “It’s not like - if anything, _I’m_ Edward in this comparison.”  
“Yeah, sure. Can you grab me a pepsi?” She dismissed me and sunk into the couch, shifting her attention to her phone.  
“Fine.” I meandered my way to the kitchen. Jacob was a grade below me, but we were both 17. I met him at a convention a few months back, and we hit off immediately. We were best friends, but I hadn’t seen him in a while, with the winter break rush of schoolwork to worry about.  
I reached into the fridge, only to find that we were out of pepsi. And quite a lot of other things, actually. Sheila needed to go to the store soon.  
We had an odd relationship: she was older than me, but while she did most of the maintenance, I was more like the parent of the household. Our parents - our real ones - just sorta left when we were little, and our grandparents took care of us for a few years. As soon as Sheila had a job, she got us an apartment, and we moved out.  
“Sheila!” I called. “We’re out of pepsi!”  
“Fine, I’ll go get some. Take care of yourself.”  
“Wait, what?”  
“I’m going to the store. There’s a lot of stuff I have to go pick up anyway.” I heard the front door opening, and then closing.  
...Okay.

I was lounging in my room upstairs at this point. Sheila was gone for about 20 minutes, but the nearest Kroger was half an hour away, so I wasn’t really concerned. I had my Switch, and was playing Smash, undoubtedly one of my favorite games of all time. Currently, some Richter online was camping me out, and I was not having fun.  
“Come on, yoooou...” I mumbled, far too invested in the game to notice I was talking to myself. “Yoooooou... Bitch!”  
Victory was mine!  
Starting up the next match, I browsed the character select screen for a bit, trying to decide how next to destroy this nuisance. My cursor hovered over Inkling, and I looked over at my dresser. Sheila had gotten me a copy of Splatoon 2 for my last that I had never actually opened.  
“Ah, what the hell,” I muttered, and got up.  
One quick cartridge change later, and I was at the home screen, hovering over the Splatoon 2 icon. I hit the button, and booted it up.  
...  
Or, at least, I thought I did?  
There didn’t seem to be a loading screen, and it had been almost 15 seconds without so much as an icon. The screen was just pure white.  
Then it started getting brighter.  
“What?...”  
The screen started glowing, far brighter than the Switch should have been able to go. I felt rumbling, and I realized it wasn’t coming from the Switch; the entire room was beginning to vibrate.  
The light was blinding.  
The shaking was deafening.

Suddenly, everything went still.


	2. Termination Shock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris wakes up and takes his first steps in this new world she finds herself in.

I opened my eyes, not aware of ever actually closing them.

I was in a bedroom. It appeared similar to mine, but not exactly. It had the same light blue wallpaper, and everything was in _almost_ the right place, but the furniture was different, like someone had tried to copy it from memory a week after last seeing it. I was in the equivalent of my bed, and I could see out the shuttered window that it seemed to be midafternoon.

My body felt... _off._

Parts of me felt swollen, like my limbs weren’t in proportion. The thing was, it wasn’t unpleasant; it felt natural like this. As much as I tried, I couldn’t tell what exactly was wrong. If anything, I actually felt _more_ comfortable than I usually do when I wake up.

I struggled to get the covers off, feeling unusually weak. At this point, alarm bells were going off in my head. Was I sick?

_What happened?_

I attempted to run through the past few moments in my head, but I was drawing a blank. My mind felt like it had been pulled inside out, and I was struggling to reconcile my senses with each other. It was as if my eyes weren’t in the right places on my head, and the fact that I didn’t have my glasses on certainly wasn’t helping.

Sheila could help. I felt like I had been out for at least an hour, so she should be back, right?

“Sheil-”

_That’s not my voice._

My hand shot to my mouth, and I felt my eyes widen in surprise. That wasn’t my voice. It was... _burblier_ , like I was gargling something, or talking through an inch of water. Shocked, I tried to speak again, only to get the same result. It was difficult to reconcile the noises that were coming out of my mouth with the fact that _I_ was making them, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t talk normally. In fact, trying to resulted in speech that wasn’t even english, but that I could still understand, somehow.

I managed to sit myself upright, still feeling strangely weak, and ran my fingers through my hair in confusion.

Or, rather, I tried to.

_No..._

My fingers bumped into something soft and slimy on my head where my hair should’ve been.

“No.”

I could feel my fingers brush against it.

” _No._ ”

I tried to grab it and lift it up, and a long, sinuous tentacle came loose. I dropped it, and it fell to the side of my head with a wet slap.

” **_No._ **”

I gave the tentacle an experimental tug, and felt a sharp discomfort on my scalp in response. 

“There’s no fucking way.”

I shoved the covers off of my body and jumped to the floor. My body still didn’t feel like it was responding the way it should have been, but now I had a creeping idea why. 

I ran to the door and looked out, thankfully seeing the familiar hallway of my apartment -- or rather, a recreation of it. Like my bedroom, it was _almost_ the hallway, but not quite. If I hadn’t been looking, I wouldn’t have noticed, but I was, and I did. 

I ran to the bathroom and stared in the mirror.

The reflection stared back.

I raised my arm, and the thing in the mirror did the same.

...

“ _There’s no_ **_fucking_ ** _way..._ ”

  
  
  


I was on the couch, curled up in the fetal position. I had thrown a blanket over myself; the sight of my -- no, this isn’t _my_ body, it was the body I was temporarily put into, this _had_ to be temporary -- was making me panic. I knew on some level it was ridiculous to be hiding from myself, but at this point I really didn’t care.

My grasp on the situation was tenuous at best, but from what I could understand, I had apparently been cursed-console creepypasta’d into Splatoon. I still had no idea how or why, although that was mainly just for lack of trying. It was hard just to bring myself to _look_ at myself, and actually _doing_ anything was out of the question. I had just figured out that wherever I was, it was like someone had remade my apartment solely out of furniture already extant in the Splatoon universe.

I had also learned that inklings apparently don’t cry water.

I heard someone knock on the door.

My head popped out from the edge of my impromptu blanket fortress. I stared at the door anxiously, debating on whether or not to actually move. I ultimately decided against it, reasoning that I had no idea where I was or who might be out there.

They knocked again, a bit more insistently this time. “Hey, you okay?” they shouted in what I assumed was inklings’ default language. It felt weird, being able to understand what had just sounded like random gurgling -- I glanced at the clock -- 2 hours ago. Had it really only been 2 hours? “I heard yelling.”

Oh yeah. There was a bit of that.

I remained silent, hoping that whoever they were, they’d just leave. They eventually did, calling as they left, “If there’s something you wanna talk about, I’m right next door.”

...

I suddenly felt very alone.

  
  


Okay, I wasn’t making any progress.

Staying curled up underneath a blanket wasn’t gonna improve my situation, as much as I just wanted to stay there. I got up and trudged over to the kitchen. All the furniture here was thankfully changed to fit my new body proportions, and as I checked in the fridge, I let out a sigh of relief to see that there was still a good amount of food in it. 

I might as well figure out what inklings _can_ eat, considering... well...

I expected to feel afraid again, but I didn’t.

_I’m an inkling._

I looked down at my body, and... didn’t panic.

I held up my oddly-proportioned hands, feeling them flex in response to my movements. The strangest thing about this body was how _not_ strange it was: I felt a lot more comfortable in this new body than I had in my own in a long time.

That thought alone sent shudders down my... whatever I had for a spine.

Deciding I needed a distraction, I set about making a sandwich. I wasn’t sure what to think about my sudden acceptance of my new self, but I figured food was the best way to take my mind off of it. I mad a plain tuna, figuring that even though I’m not usually a fan of fish, I ‘m now part squid, and squids usually eat fish.

It may have been the stress of the situation, my new biology, or some combination of the two, but that sandwich was one of the best things I’d ever tasted.

  
  


I decided it was finally time to take a good look at myself. This was my body for the time being, and given that I didn’t have a way back to my own world, I might as well get used to it for as long as I was stuck with it.

I walked the short distance to the downstairs bathroom, closed my eyes, faced the mirror, psyched myself up, and looked.

...

_...Oh._

_...I’m a girl now?..._

I wasn’t sure what to think, honestly. I was definitely female, and my hair-tentacles were a soft green, but other than that, I looked like someone had tried to design human me in Splatoon’s character creator. I still had my olive skin and hazel eyes, and...

...despite not having seen anyone to compare myself against in this new world, I could just sort of _tell_ I had a slimmer-than-average build for an inkling.

_Huh._

...

All of a sudden, it struck me that I should have been freaking out about having my gender swapped, but for some reason, I just felt...

...Validated?

Some part of my mind kept trying to panic, but it was like a car engine trying to start in -10 degree weather. I just felt _right_ like this.

  
  


After lounging on the couch for some time, perplexed by my lack of anxiety, I had finally decided that I wanted to figure out the rest of this world that I found myself in. 

And to do that, I would have to go _outside_.

Now that scared me. I had no idea what the rest of the world looked like, or even if there was anyone else out there, but-

No, wait. There was that person who had checked on me earlier.

Okay, so there _were_ other inklings outside somewhere, but I still had no idea what outside even looked like. However, after a lot of freaking out to myself, I had finally mustered enough courage to investigate this new world I found myself in.

I was standing at the front door. After one last spike of anxiety, I slowly opened it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea how to write, and im just kinda letting this story develop itself as it goes along. im just the messenger.
> 
> as always, any feedback is appreciated!
> 
> this chapter's song is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsGoILU2Wd4


	3. Walking on the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris takes her first steps out into the Splatooniverse--for real this time.

Straight into the middle of a hallway.

_...Okay, that’s a start._

Taking a cautious glance down both directions, it became immediately obvious that this was _not_ my apartment building. Like, it wasn’t even close. The colors were far too vibrant, and the carpet design was completely wrong. It seems that whatever force had dropped me and my apartment into this world had stopped at the front door.

There didn’t seem to be anyone in the immediate vicinity, so I looked around, looking for some kind of sign that could tell me where I was, or at least what floor I was on. Coming to a T-junction, I spotted one on the wall and slowly walked up to it, still not entirely in perfect control of my new legs.

...

_I have no clue what any of this says._

It seems my biological bilinguality only extended to spoken words. The mass of arrows and text in front of me--if you could even call it text--was completely indecipherable to me. I couldn’t even tell where one word ended and the next began.

_This is gonna be an issue..._

Eventually I managed to navigate my way to an elevator. Or, at least, something that looked like one. I hit the down arrow button on the wall next to it and waited.

With a satisfying _ding_ , the doors opened, and--

Someone else was already on.

“Oh, hey!” The inkling on the elevator said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. You new?”

I could barely mutter out a response within a socially acceptable time window. “Yeah, I just- I just got here,” I stammered.

She was tall-ish, thin-ish, and dark-ish. Her eyes were a brilliant orange, and seemed to focus on everything at once. Her tentacles were a light pink, with one swept off to the side, framing her freckled face. She was wearing a grape-colored t-shirt with some more incomprehensible text on it--this one looked like a logo--and a pair of running shorts, with a pair of gray sneakers to complete the arrangement.

“Oh, were you the one who was crying earlier?” she said, her smile falling.

“Uhh--Yeah,” I mumbled.

“Hey, if you ever need to talk, I’m here, I guess.”

“...Okay,,,?”

She walked past me, probably back to her apartment. As she left, I heard her mutter something to herself.

“Noone lives there...”

I got down to the lobby without any trouble. All I needed to do was press the bottom button on the elevator panel; I didn’t even need to read for that. I wasn’t sure why I thought it would cause so much trouble.

The doors opened once again, and I was met with a barrage of colors. I stepped into a spacious lobby area, and the colors here somehow managed to be even _more_ bright and bold than the ones in the hallway; the walls were covered in seemingly random splatter patterns, overlapping everywhere I looked. For some reason, though, they didn’t clash; it was actually kind of appealing.

There was someone at the front desk, whom I initially mistook for another inkling. Upon closer inspection, however, (still from a reasonable distance: even I knew walking up to someone and just staring at them was rude, no matter what universe you were in) his hair tentacles looked more like actual hair, and his eyes were different. I mentally pulled up an image of a sea anemone and compared it to the dude in front of me, and it checked out.

 _So there were other species here, not just squids,_ I thought to myself. Valuable info.

Seeing nothing else of interest, I decided to head out into the world. I knew practically nothing about _Splatoon_ or its lore, so I really didn’t know what this world looked like or how to live in it. And, given that I was going to be doing so--at least for the time being--I figured that I oughta learn.

I took another deep breath, and opened another door for the first time.

...

 _This place is_ **_beautiful._ **

I stepped out into a massive metropolis, with a glittering skyline in the distance. The streets were damn near spotless, and from where I was standing, I could see dozens of people of all shapes, sizes, colors, and from what I could tell, _species_ bustling around. Even in the sunset--or maybe _because_ of it--the city thrummed with life.

Hell, the city _itself_ felt alive, in a way that only a home can--

“‘Scuse me!”

I was shoved out of the doorway from behind as a familiar voice grunted in annoyance. Neighbor-girl from earlier bursted out of the door beside me and took off down the road to the left, shooting me an irritated glance back at me. She seemed to recognize me, and followed it up with one that looked... confused?

I’m new to this species, I don’t have all the facial expressions down.

She darted away down the road, and I, having nothing better to do, decided to follow her.

I was hopelessly lost.

I had managed to follow neighbor-girl’s tracks for about 5 minutes, before my unfamiliarity with both my new body and the layout of the city, combined with my awful sense of direction, made me fall behind. I had proceeded to wander aimlessly for another hour or so. I couldn’t find any landmarks that I recognized on my way from the apartment building. At one point I actually tried to use the stars as a reference, but the light pollution out here was terrible, and it wasn’t like I knew how it was gonna help me anyways.

I took a left turn at a brightly decorated shop-looking building--not that anything here _wasn’t_ brightly decorated--and down an alleyway, trying to catch my breath and get my bearings. I leaned on the wall and took a few deep breaths, attempting to calm down. Being lost in an unfamiliar city in an unfamiliar world isn’t the _best_ for one’s mental state.

Something hard and heavy knocked against the side of my head.

I fell to the ground, clutching the side of my head. It turns out tentacles are like, _really_ sensitive, and it hurts like a _bitch_ when they’re crushed. 

I looked up at what had hit me, and _neighbor-girl_ was standing over me, promptly pinning me to the floor.

 _“I know who you are!”_ she shouted angrily. “Don’t think you can get away with this, you Octarian _spy!_ ”

“I--wait-- _what?_ ”

“Don’t play dumb with me. I don’t know how you got here, but I _will_ send you back!” With this, she pointed a water-gun-looking weapon at my face.

“Wait, you can?”

“I’ll--wait, what?” Now it was her turn to be confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Look, I think there’s been a miscommunication! I’m not some Octarian or whatever, I don’t wanna hurt anybody, I just--” 

Something rang a bell about that last statement. I ran through what I did know about Splatoon 2, and a singular datum came up.

“Wait--you’re Agent 4.”

My nextdoor neighbor was Agent 4.

She pressed the gun harder against my head. “ **_How do you know that!?_ **” She growled.

I panicked. “I’m not--please don’t hurt me!”

“Tell me something an Octarian wouldn’t know.”

I racked my brains, and came up with something I knew from Splatoon 1. Well, really, my friends had spoiled it for me in an attempt to be jerks, but I had no context for it anyways, so I really didn’t know what it meant. “Callie and Marie are Agents 1 and 2, respectively,” I sputtered.

This seemed to just exacerbate her confusion. “Wh--How--How do you know _that!?_ ”

“Please, I can explain everything, just don’t hurt me!”

“...” She glared at me for a few seconds.

She pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry about the delay! i'm really busy with school stuff at the moment, but i'll work on this when i can.
> 
> this chapter's song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4hMQtcKfQo
> 
> as always, all feedback is appreciated!


	4. Anomaly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cynthia wakes up, with quite a bit of explaining to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy fuck im so sorry  
> i really didnt mean to take nearly a year to update this, but with school and the pandemic and everything, i just didn't have time or motivation. fortunately, im now in a bit of a more stable situation, and should be able to work on this a bit more.

I woke up with a feeling like I had hit my head really hard, but across my whole body. It was like I had been,,, stunned, or,,, concussed, maybe. It didn’t  _ hurt _ , but it certainly wasn’t comfortable.

I opened my eyes and glanced around the room. I was back in my apartment, on the couch in the living room. I looked around for clues on how I’d gotten there. Sitting across the room from me was Neighbor-girl, just sort of on my couch.

I panicked again and tried to get up, but my arms just  _ weren’t there _ .

I freaked out  _ again _ , just sort of flopping off the couch and landing hard on the carpeted floor. I flailed every limb I could feel and tried to shout something, but all that came out was a garbled squeak.

Agent 4 let out an amused chuckle from the other side of the room. “Pull yourself together,” she chided.

“ _ What? _ ” I squeaked out. “ _ What did you do to me!? _ ”

“I took you back to your apartment. You left it unlocked.”

“ _ No, I--why can’t I feel my arms!? _ ”

“...What?” She looked over at me, no longer smiling. “What do you mean?”

“ **_What did you do to me!?!?_ ** ”

“...” She seemed to really take me in for the first time, her eyes scanning over my body--whatever was left of it, I assumed. As she did, the expression on her face shifted from exasperation to a deep confusion. 

“...Who  _ are _ you? Really?”

“ _ My name is Cynthia, and I’m from Earth, and I really don’t know where I am or wha-- _ ”

Wait, hold on, what did I just call mysel

“Look, I can barely understand you like that. Pull yourself together and we can talk.”

“ **_I don’t know what that means!_ ** ”

She looked like I had legitimately thrown her for a loop here; she really didn’t know how to react to me or what I was doing. “Wait, you--what--okay, alright, just... umm... Hold on and just watch me, okay?”

She looked down at me--I was still sprawled on the floor--and, holding eye contact the entire time, just  _ dissolved _ , right in front of me.

“ _ Bweeh!? _ ” 

In her place, on the floor was a--

_ Oh. _

There was a squid on the floor.

_ I forgot we could do that... _

Once again, I caught myself using the word “we” to refer to Inklings as a whole. It made sense, but I definitely didn’t mean to do it--it just sort of happened.

“Hey, pay attention.” Four caught my eyes from the floor. Her voice was distorted like mine; much higher pitched and somehow even  _ more _ gurgly. It was difficult to tell what she was even saying.

Once again maintaining eye contact, a humanoid body just kind of formed around her. Initially it was all the same pink of her tentacles, but it gained color as it coalesced, eventually forming her dark-ish skin. Interestingly, her clothes formed around her body along with her.

Having returned to her precious height, Four continued to stare down at me.

“...”

“...”

“...Now you do it.”

I still had no idea what she just did.

“I still have no idea what you just did.”

She was somewhere between exasperated and flummoxed at this point. “Wh--what do you mean you don’t--” She threw her hands above her head. “Have you, like, seriously never been splatted before?” She cried.

“YES!” I angrily chirped back from the floor.

“You--How!?” She shouted in response. “Where the hell did you grow up, Triggerfish Forest!?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!! I don’t have any fucking idea where I am or how I got here!” I shifted back to upright form and locked her gaze with my own, forcefully grabbing her shoulders. “Why won’t you  _ listen _ to me!?!?”

She blinked. There was surprise and shock on her face, along with a hint of fear.

Several seconds passed.

“...”

“...”

Excruciatingly slowly, it dawned on me what I’d done. I let go of Four and took several steps back, looking down at my hands. They were... my hands. I flexed my fingers to confirm what I was seeing, and they responded correctly.

“What... how did... how...?” I still didn’t know exactly what it was I did. I’d just, sort of... instinctually conjured a body out of thin air. There wasn’t any thought to it, I’d just gotten upset enough, and it just sort of... *happened*.

“Okay, can you ex--”

“Wait,” I cut Four off. “Hold on...” I tried to think back, to remember what I just did and how I did it. I attempted to do the same... whatever I’d done, but in reverse this time.

My body just kind of gave out from under me. One second, it was there, and the next, I was falling, changed to squid “form.” I felt it dissolve into some kind of liquid, which then flowed into my smaller, squid body.

Then, I tried to bring it back. I tried to imagine my body, willing it into existence, and picturing it in my mind. The fluid--ink? My ink?--rushed out of me and coalesced into a solid form around me. I lost the senses of my squid body as the ones for my upright one flooded in, and a rough approximation of a humanoid body formed around me. The details began to emerge, skin tone forming about concurrently with my fingers. Less than a second later, I was human again.

Well, not  _ human _ , but... you get the point.

I shifted forms a few more times, getting the hang of the transformation. It came naturally, although that was probably to be expected, given it’s a fundamental part of my biology now. I’d just never experienced it before, and it took some getting used to.

All at once, I was struck by a heavy wave of perspective. I had not only been pulled into an alien world, but I had somehow been transformed into one of the aliens who lived in it. I was walking around inside of a video game, one that I hadn’t even ever played, standing in front of the main character. I didn’t know how I got here, how my new body worked, or even if there was a way to get back to my own world.

And yet, I wasn’t afraid. 

Somehow, something about where I was now, about what I was-- _ who _ I was--stuck with me, in a way that nothing else ever really had.

“Ahem,” Four said, her arms crossed and her face in a mild scowl. “You’ve still got a lot of explaining to do.” 

“Ah,” I moved to the couch, now able to properly sit down, with legs and such. “Uhh... Well, to start, I’m not an ‘octarius’ or whatever--”

“Octarian,” she corrected. 

“Right,” I continued. “I don’t even know what those are. I’m not from this place, or this world, really. I’m from earth.”

“This  _ is _ earth, dingus.” She looked at me from across the couch, still a little contemptuous, but now definitely interested.

“Oh.” That was news to me. I knew next to nothing of Splatoon’s lore, and I’d been generally trying to gather all the information I could about this world since I’d been unceremoniously dropped into it, but I hadn’t gotten much so far. 

“My name is...” I hesitated for a moment, thinking back. What had I called myself, before I had “pulled myself together”?

Cynthia.

I didn’t know where the name came from, but it just felt... right, in a way I wasn’t sure how to explain.

“My name is Cynthia, and I used to be human.”

Four’s eyebrows furrowed, and she squinted at me in confusion. “Wait, you... What do you mean, ‘used to be’? Humans have been extinct since, like, twelve thousand years ago or something.”

I blinked.

Several seconds passed.

My eyes unfocused for a bit as I took that in. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. 

Four noticed my shock, leaning a bit closer to me. “Cynthia? Are you... Are you okay?”

I honestly didn’t know how to respond, but I pieced something together. “Um... Yeah, I think. That’s just... Damn. Extinct...” I was still rolling the fact over in my head, trying to get a grasp on it. “...I mean... Well, that’s certainly disheartening.”

“Wait, you’re serious? About the human thing?” Four’s anger and irritation seemed to have evaporated, being replaced by genuine curiosity and concern. “But you’re an Inkling.”

“Yeah, I’m still not entirely certain on how that happened,” I answered. “I’m just a regular high school student. One moment, I’m in my room, playing video games, and the next, I’m here, in an entirely different body, and I...” As I trailed off, something inside me gave way. It took me a second, but I realized what it was;

That lonely feeling had gone away.

Before I could think, I’d started rambling, dumping my life story--most of it, at least--onto Four. I’d only been here for half a day at most, but as comfortable as this world had been, I was still afraid. It was strange, unfamiliar, and, in every sense of the word, alien. Something about being here, next to Four, though, had alleviated that fear. The combination of something resembling home, along with someone I could talk to, who really seemed to  _ care _ , did mountains to reassure me.

I sat there and babbled for the next twenty minutes, dumping all of my stress by explaining my predicament to Four and just letting the tension I had built up flow out of me.

When she was sure I wasn’t looking, she pulled out her phone and copied it down, sending it to an interested individual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's song is; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j15tAxxc38Y
> 
> as always, feedback is appreciated!


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